English
It is the second most widely spoken language across all six continents. It is the primary language of U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland, along with many other countries with more than 350 million speakers across the world. It is also the official language of Philippines, India and many African countries and is the second language of about 200 – 600 million people. Its history dates back to 5th century when Jutes, Angles and Saxons migrated from Germany and Denmark to Britain making England as its originating home town. It belongs to West Germanic branch of Indo-European family of languages. It is the most widely taught foreign language around the world. It is the official language of United Nations, Common Wealth and many other international organizations. It is regarded as a global language due to its wide use in communication, media, business, government, entertainment, science etc. Many regional dialects and varieties are found and some differences are found between American, British, Canadian and African English..
Many words from Greek, Latin and French have been incorporated to English language over the period of time. It is a pluricentric language written in Latin alphabet which means there are many standard versions of English language. Many loanwords from English can be found in different language while English itself has also brought many words from others. Due to its capability of absorbing words from other languages, it has extra ordinary rich vocabulary. Many varieties of English have been constructed to fulfill various needs of a global language like Basic English, Special English, English Reform, E-Prime, Euro-English etc. English language is slightly inflected with no grammatical gender and adjectival agreement. Modal and auxiliary verbs are also used considerably. Sentence order is usually Subject Verb Object while spelling system is not phonological.
South African English is a dialect and is a variation of English mainly spoken in South Africa and some of its neighboring countries. This variety is said to be somewhat closely related to Australian and New Zealand English. It consists of some words which are derived from African languages and are not part of American or British English.
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